


holiday house

by wearealltalesintheend



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Ambassador Sokka (Avatar), F/F, F/M, Getting Together, Haunted Houses, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Timeline What Timeline, actually the real scariest thing might be the inevitable passage of time, and house of leaves, but it's not really scary, it's kind of a halloween fic, okay this is very loosely inspired by the haunting of bly manor, the scariest thing is the pining really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27048457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearealltalesintheend/pseuds/wearealltalesintheend
Summary: By the cliff, in a far off corner in the Ember Islands, there stands a sprawling manor, its empty hallways leading into empty rooms, wooden floors unwalked for decades, left to gather dust and sand, warmed by the sun and soothed by the moon. It stands as it’s done for centuries before, alone and untouched. Windows opened by storms, salt air filling the negative space left by its owners, unbothered.The tides rise and fall, day after day, and all the while, the Royal Holiday House sleeps, alone and untouched, and thus, it dreams.*or, a year after the war, Zuko brings everyone back to his beach house in Ember Island. Half a century later, Mako is dragged into exploring a haunted house by the beach.Two days, two sets of people. They're still too young for what they had to do.
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Bolin/Opal (Avatar), Korra/Asami Sato, Mako/Prince Wu (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 205





	holiday house

_ “There are such things as ghosts. People everywhere have always known that. And we believe in them every bit as much as Homer did. Only now, we call them by different names. Memory. The unconscious.” _

― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

*

By the cliff, in a far off corner in the Ember Islands, there stands a sprawling manor, its empty hallways leading into empty rooms, wooden floors unwalked for decades, left to gather dust and sand, warmed by the sun and soothed by the moon. It stands as it’s done for centuries before, alone and untouched. Windows opened by storms, salt air filling the negative space left by its owners, unbothered. 

The tides rise and fall, day after day, and all the while, the Royal Holiday House sleeps, alone and untouched, and thus, it dreams.

*

**NOW**

“Come on, Mako,  _ please!” _

“No,  _ no,  _ I told you, I’m not helping you break into the Fire Lord’s beach house!”

“Technically,” Asami says, lips twitching in her effort not to grin, “it’s the  _ former  _ Fire Lord’s beach house. Both Zuko and the ambassador are still alive, you know, it hasn’t been passed down yet.”

“That’s even worse!” Mako scowls, throwing his hands up, “you do get how that’s worse, right?”

Bolin, the traitor, snickers, “don’t be a spoilsport, bro.”

If asked, Mako wouldn’t be able to tell how they got here. Honestly. This was supposed to be a relaxing week at the beach, a vacation he’d been harassed into joining, a  _ fun, not at all stressful  _ getaway. Somehow, somewhere along the way, that had turned into  _ breaking into the royal family’s holiday house.  _

Maybe that’s on Mako, really. He should have known things would find a way to spiral out of control, they have a way of always doing that when they’re all together. Still, though, he blames this a little on the old man at the village– telling ghost stories about haunted houses in the vicinity of Korra, Bolin,  _ and  _ Wu had been just asking for trouble. 

“Opal, come on,” he turns to his last hope of wrangling this back on track, “you can’t think this a good idea either!”

She bites her lip, glancing at Bolin and then the others, before smiling sheepishly, and Mako’s hope withers and dies at his feet. They’ve gotten to her as well, damn it. “Sorry, Mako,” she’s biting her cheeks not to laugh, he can tell, “it sounds fun? And we’re on vacation!”

“Yeah,” Korra nods furiously, grinning like a maniac, “we’re on vacation! We’re kind of  _ obligated  _ to do stupid things, really.”

He shakes his head, feeling a familiar sense of resignation creep up his spine, and hides his face on his hand. “I’m a cop, I work for the police, I’m a detective,” he says, fully aware how close to whining he’s sounding, “I’m not helping you break and enter private property.”

“But you’re the only one who knows how to pick a lock–”

“I mean, I could try to bend around the doorway–”

“I stand by my offer to kick it down–”

“Can’t we break a window, really–”

“You all are very welcome,” Wu’s voice cuts through the chatter, and it’s coming from the opposite direction where it should be, not from behind Mako where he had been but– “now, are we exploring this frankly tacky house, or not?”

The door is open. Wide open. And Wu is there, in the threshold, looking smug and satisfied, like a cat who got the cream, and Mako blinks once, twice, three times. “How did you–”

“The window locks were broken already,” Wu shrugs, making a point of dusting himself, and Mako makes a point of not following his hand along his chest, “and everything here is  _ old.” _

“Erm,” Korra scrunches her nose, shifting her weight from side to side while Asami snorts at her side, “we forgot to try the doorknob first.”

“Come on,” Bolin runs past him, tugging a laughing Opal by the hand with him, and they take the short steps two at a time to disappear inside the house.

Trading a delighted look with Asami, Korra scoops her up without warning, making her squeal in surprise, slapping her arm, then fall into giggles as they cross the doorway into the shadows.

Behind him, the sea murmurs in gentle waves, breaking softly against the sand, and Mako sighs deeply, knowing he will not turn around and walk back to Asami’s beach house. Instead, he climbs the rotting steps with heavy feet.

“Don’t look so glum, buddy,” Wu claps his shoulder, absolutely not sympathetic in the least, “this will be fun!”

“We’re going to be arrested,” Mako decides with wary clarity, “and Beifong will be mad  _ and  _ disappointed.”

“Fun,” Wu repeats, nodding once and then placing both hands on Mako’s shoulders to steer him further inside the house. Even as the door falls closed behind them, leaving them in an eerie semi-darkness, Mako can feel his skin burning under Wu’s palms, tingling all the way down to his hands.

He clenches them tightly into fists, and finally takes a look around.

*

**THEN**

“Beach house, sweet, beach house,” Sokka announces throwing the door open and taking a deep breath– which immediately proves to be a mistake: even great good beach houses can turn dusty when left closed up for too long. His coughing fit isn’t even that bad, but it sure gives Katara the golden opportunity to smack him hard on the back, “ouch, careful! I thought you were a healer!”

“And I was just healing your lungs,” she answers easily, breezing past his scowl with Aang beaming at her side. Honestly. 

“Come on, Ambassador,” Toph passes, punching his arm on her way, “stop blocking the door.”

Sokka sniffs, rubbing at the undoubtedly bruising spot, and graciously decides to let it go. Above him, he can already hear the faint sounds of Aang and Katara walking around, in and out of guest rooms, dust particles floating down, silhouetted by the lone sunlight beam streaming from the living room window. 

The place is exactly how they left last year– a little messy, pillows out of place, windows not quite locked, Katara’s hair tie in the coffee table, Aang’s headband on the floor by the hallway ahead. It makes something in his chest tighten, his heart constricting, lungs squeezing, as he thinks back to that weekend. Look where they are now, how far from where they started.

“Sorry,” Zuko’s voice startles him, loosening up the knot behind his sternum and flushing up heat for a whole different reason. He looks sheepish, though, standing at Sokka’s side and scratching the back of his neck, “I should probably have had someone clean the place up before we arrived but…”

“But we didn’t exactly plan this ahead, yeah,” he grins, elbowing him gently, “don’t worry, man. Unless your majesty is afraid of a little sweeping?”

Zuko rolls his eyes, snorting, and pushes him lightly, just enough to jostle Sokka forward and bring a laugh out of him. “Shut up, I can clean.”

“Can you now,” he raises an eyebrow, amused, and picks up the bags Katara had left behind in her quest for the perfect bedroom.

“It’s true!” Zuko insists, sounding almost offended, but shoulders Toph’s backpack anyway to follow Sokka up the stairs, “I used to help Uncle tidy up the tea shop!”

“You know, that’s another thing I’d  _ pay  _ to see,” Sokka snickers, nearly missing a step while he’s at it, “can’t believe Katara’s got to witness you working customer service and I didn’t.”

“It’s not that funny,” he’s scowling now, Sokka can tell, no need to turn around.

_ “Momo  _ got to see it!”

“I don’t know why you all think it’s so funny–”

“It’s kind of hilarious,” he hoists the bags up the last step before whirling around to grin at Zuko’s truly impressive scowl, “I don’t know if you noticed but you’re kinda snappy.”

Predictably, that sends him into a fit. “I’m not–  _ snappy!  _ People are just– I mean–  _ ugh!”  _ He glares, fussing with the backpack’s strap to avoid proving the point further, “you see me in the council almost every day now and Katara doesn’t. It doesn’t get any worse than that. So there.”

_ Oh.  _ That’s unexpected. Sokka swallows thickly around the sudden lump in his throat, feels his heart stutter in his chest. “That’s. Yeah, I guess.”

It’s not that the air grows awkward after that, but it thickens, turns into something almost buzzing,  _ electrifying,  _ and Sokka shivers, knows a bunch of things he’s been keeping tangled in his ribcage– away from the light, out of sight, out of mind– is about to unfurl and slips past his lips–

“Guys, come see what we found!”

Aang skids around the corner, a whirlwind in his own right, bringing a gush of wind that flaps at his clothes, “we’ve never got to explore last time, but I think we found a library and there’s a room with just paintings! They’re awful, you guys have to see!”

Whatever had been brewing seconds before sizzles and Sokka breathes in a grateful mouthful of air, plasters his best winning grin, “what? I bet we can find Zuko’s baby pictures!”

“Wait, no, what do you mean–”

Aang laughs, bright and carefree, and spins in his airball, sending dust and sand everywhere, but no one comments on it; it’s been a hot minute since someone laughed like that in this place, Sokka bets.

In any case, Aang speeds off laughing, Zuko is still spluttering, and somewhere near, Toph and Katara are arguing their heads off just for old time’s sake, so Sokka just shakes his head and follows, folding the little knowledge of how well this cacophony of people sounds fits this house like a paper crane.

*

**NOW**

Silence is a blanket that settles heavily on their shoulders, rendering the living room eerily quiet, as if the building itself is holding its breath. It reminds Mako of a spider waiting on its web, carefully aware of each thread.

“Should we split up?”

Well, they do seem to be intent on being awfully dumb flies today.

“No,” Mako cuts in quickly before the conversation slips off common sense entirely, “if we’re really doing this, then we stick together. No running off, no staying out of sight.”

Korra snorts. “Should we all hold hands too? Make a hand chain?”

“I know you’re making fun,” he says, defeated, “but that’s not a bad idea.”

An arm is thrown over his shoulder and Mako glares at his brother, trying to convey how much he wishes he were anywhere else but here, “relax, Mako. It’ll be fine. It’s just an old house.”

“A  _ haunted  _ house,” adds Wu with a wobbly voice that was probably meant to be spooky, but really, it was just endearing.

“You’re not afraid of some ghosts, are you?”

“No, but this  _ is  _ an old house,” Mako shakes Bolin off, “and it’s probably abandoned for a reason. Who knows, the floor might be rotting! It might be standing in a landslide! It’s  _ definitely  _ falling apart–”

A hand covers his mouth and it takes him a monumental effort not to lick it out of spite. “Mako. Big guy.  _ Breathe.  _ Stop worrying so much! I–  _ did you just lick my hand?!” _

Well, no regrets, honestly. 

“I hate you,” he makes a point of informing not only Wu, but the room as a whole. They all know he’ll cave and follow them deeper into the belly of the house, that’s true, but that doesn’t mean he won’t dig his heels either. 

“No, you don’t,” Wu  _ beams  _ with an absolute certainty that makes him flush, look away to the yellowed window to his left, avoiding everyone’s eyes, “besides, it can’t be all that abandoned, the fire lilies wouldn’t have survived alone for very long.”

Mako rolls his eyes, trying very hard not to smile at the memories of the letters hidden in a drawer at his desk in the precinct, each of them carefully folded every time he rereads them, all containing several lines describing Wu’s mishaps in his garden. “We’ve talked about this, just because your plants always die, it doesn’t mean–”

“What fire lilies?”

Asami’s voice slices the room in half, bleeding out all sound until they’re left with the claustrophobic echoes of their own breathing. The living room is a gaping wound and her question buzzes in the air like a fly–  _ what fire lilies? _

“Oh,” Wu blinks, turning around in an almost complete circle, eyes taking in the whole space, bit by bit, and frowns as if regarding a puzzle that doesn’t match the box picture. “Weird, I could swear there were lilies.”

He means the coffee table, where a vase has tumbled and rolled right to edge. Once upon a time, there might have been flowers there, but the tumbling and rolling and spilling must have happened too long ago: all there’s left now are dirt streaked on the floor, dust, and wilted things too rotten to be recognizable. It’s odd. In the dark, the whole room is washed monochrome, faded shades of grey and black; in here, the bright, vivid orange of the lilies would have stood out.

“Anyway,” Bolin says loudly, grinning with a smile that Mako knows is just his way of putting on a brave face, and his hand is gripping Opal’s, no space between them. Mako’s own hand itches, a piercing wish to reach for Wu like a string is tugging between them. “Which room first?”

_ Famous last words,  _ Mako thinks and longs fiercely for his desk back at work.

*

**THEN**

The sun is high in the sky, alone in the merciless blue, and Sokka soaks up the heat gladly, lying on his back in the sand, warmth seeping through the flimsy towel he laid down in. These past months had been certainly more stressful than the content period he’d spent at home, basking in the familiarity of the South Pole, but here, he can feel the tension melting away, washed by the waves breaking a few feet from him.

Moving to Caldera City had been hard, and he’d be lying if he said he doesn’t carry his homesickness like collected shells from the beach, but his dad has got everything under control right now and Katara doesn’t need him third-wheeling her travels with Aang. There’s nowhere else he’s needed at. Except maybe as an Ambassador. 

Here, in the Fire Nation, he can learn from the other diplomats, watch the politics closer, argue for his people with all the knowledge he gained in the war. Sure, maybe his dad has a point when he says Sokka shouldn’t be worrying about this stuff yet, but they’re past that now.

After a war, how do you go back to being just a kid?

“Hey, Sokka,” Zuko’s voice lulls guides him back to the present, drifting away from his thoughts, and Sokka blinks, propping himself up on an elbow and raising a hand to his eyes to shield from the sun, “I, uh, I found this shell?”

Zuko looks faintly sunburnt on the shoulders and the bridge of his nose, but it’ll probably be gone by nightfall, and in his hands, a twisted shell so pale, the yellow looks almost white. It’s nothing different from the ones he’s seen around, but Zuko looks inexplicably nervous, so Sokka takes it from him to inspect it a little closer. “That for me?”

“Yeah,” he clears his throat, shifting a little where he stands, and dislodging the sand around the towel. “I just. You said something once about patterns? And, uh, fractures?”

Now, Sokka has to smile. Yeah, Caldera isn’t that bad, really. Maybe it will never be the place where he grew up, but it’s where Zuko is. It’s where Sokka has breakfast with him every morning and it’s where they sit by the pond sometimes and feed the turtle ducks. It’s where Zuko falls asleep at his desk and Sokka has to shake his shoulder and steer him to the right bedroom. 

It’s where Sokka realized his heart doesn’t belong to him anymore– it’s Zuko’s if he ever wants it.

“Fractals,” Sokka corrects, still smiling, and sits up properly to give space for him to sit beside him in the towel. “Here, see? It’s these patterns–”

There’s a warmth in his chest that has nothing to do with the sun above their heads, but Sokka keeps talking, marveling in the undivided attention Zuko always gives him, even through his rambles, and pretends he can’t see Suki and Katara giving him thumbs up from the water.

*

**NOW**

They don’t stick together.

Not that Mako had expected them to, or even truly wanted it himself either, but experience has taught him to give the exaggerated option first and watch them settle with what he wanted all along. In this case, he made a show to begrudgingly accept the buddy system.

In a house this big, he hopes pairing off will move things quicker, get them out faster, and besides, there’s at least one person he trusts to veto stupid ideas in each pair. Maybe. Trust is a big word and he knows for a fact Asami crumbles like a castle of cards under Korra’s puppy eyes. 

“Did you hear that?”

Mako blinks, forcefully shaking himself back to the present. “What?”

At his side, Wu’s frowning, just slightly, just enough to make his brow crinkle and Mako want to smooth it out, “uh. Must be nothing, just the others.”

“You sure you’re alright?”

“Yes, of course!” It’s like a fog dispelling from his face, Wu grins, grabbing his wrist without hesitation, not bothering to move away from the scars there, and tugs him further into the study. The wood here is stained by the salt, windows covered with grime, and dead flies litter the floor by the windowsill. 

While Wu lets him go to snoop around the desk, giggling every once in a while, Mako idly pokes around the shelves. Dust covers everything like a coat of paint– rows and rows of scrolls corroded by time and nature, ink fading away into almost illegible scribblings, and little knickknacks that seemed to be collected without rhyme or reason: a twisting shell, a submarine model, a dragon tooth. It all sits there, in neat rows, so carefully kept, Mako wonders why no one came back for them. All these years… if the village is to be believed, no one has been here in nearly half a century.

He can’t understand it. Even now, even just seeing the bare bones of it, standing and prowling around this skeleton of a house, Mako can see what it must have been, once upon a time. If the air is heavy and sticking to his lungs, if the stairs creak and the wallpaper is peeling off to reveal branching black tendrils of mold that reach up, up, up to the ceiling, well. It still doesn’t hide the architecture, the paintings, and tapestries, and–

“What’s so funny anyway?” He asks after Wu’s giggles echoes across his musing for the fifth time.

By the window, a crystal paperweight in his hand, Wu makes a face at him. “What?”

“You keep giggling,” Mako says, ignoring the heat he feels rising to his face for no reason at all, then adds quickly, “it’s annoying.”

Wu frowns, looking around and under the desk before scrambling to cross the distance between them, latching onto Mako’s arm and glancing up at him with wide eyes so green that not even all the dust and shadows in this house could dull. “Mako,” his fingers dig in his arm, and Mako watches his throat work as he swallows, “I’m not doing anything, but I’ve been hearing it too.”

Well shit. His whole body goes cold in a way it never does, chest tight, and the room seems to have grown larger, the shadows longer, in the time it took them to look away.  _ Ghosts aren’t a thing.  _ Spirits are, though. Has the room been so quiet all along? They’re holding their breath, he realizes with a start, and it’s as if the house itself is doing it too.

Another giggle.

“Did you–” Wu clings to him, but Mako shushes him, eyes fixed in the cabinet on the other side of the study, near the balcony door. The cherry wood has been chipped away and the handles are rusted, but the noise is coming from there, he’s sure of it, and it’s a child’s giggle, unmistakable like a fire lily in a dead room. Mako takes a step forward. “What are you doing?”

Wu is tugging him back, hissing at him to stop, but the giggling is coming from the cabinets and it’s either more spirit bullshit or there’s a child in here, and whichever option, Mako can’t turn away from this. What if they need help? He’s broken into more than one abandoned house to keep Bolin away from the rain. 

Before he could reach for the corroded handle, the doors spring open, two girls no older than six bursting forth and startling him into stumbling back. 

Wu screams.

The children pay them no mind, holding tight to each other’s hands, barely pausing so one of them can fix her crooked glasses,  _ “come on, ‘Zumi!” _

She tugs at her friend and the moonlight filters through the grime in the window, illuminating them with a sickly yellow light, and Mako curses in silence. The girls are half-transparent, shimmering images, more shadows than flesh, and no one has worn those kinds of clothes in the Fire Nation in decades. 

“Are you seeing this?” Wu whispers, still burrowed at Mako’s side, but his voice is steady, more curious than scared.

Mako blinks. He’s not afraid either. There’s something about the scene, the atmosphere, that doesn’t inspire fear; there’s nothing frightening about it, not even if they’re truly spirits. “Yeah. Do you think that…”

“They’re ghosts?” Wu loosens his grip but doesn’t move away, only lowers his hand to circle around Mako’s wrist instead of biceps. 

The children don’t seem to see them or even notice them at all as they giggle again before tearing off towards the balcony, unbothered by the closed door– perhaps, in another life, in whatever time they’ve come from, it was open, the sea breeze drifting in to rust at the handles and stain the floorboards.

“Wait!” Mako calls after them, trading a quick look with Wu before chasing after them. The lock is jammed, too old and rusted to work properly, but it gives after a few tries, finally allowing them to pour out in the balcony.

It’s too late, though. Whatever their nature, the children are gone, disappeared without a trace, not even their giggling left behind. Instead, there’s just more rotting wood and unstable floorboards, the full moon shining above them and the sea murmuring ahead. 

Is it that late already? Mako doesn’t remember the moon being that high in the sky when they came in. Has it always looked that large? Or that close?

“What the–” A bright silvery light fills his vision, washing over the whole place, and Mako watches in awe as a figure glimmers to life, floating just outside the balcony: a girl probably younger than Opal, her white hair flowing like the tides and eyes so achingly kind, tragically beautiful.

“Is that the–” Wu whispers, small and faint.

“The Moon Spirit,” he says, as quiet as he can to not disturb the apparition.

As if summoned by their whispers, another shadow grows into a human shape, wind turning into Earth Kingdom clothes and darkness taking the shape of an unmistakable face: Suki, the Kyoshi Warrior, the war hero. She’s looking up at Yue with enchanted eyes, her hand seeming to reach up to Yue’s face as if on its own volition, touching her cheek with such gentleness, Mako almost looks away, his own heart aching in kinship.

_ “You’re beautiful,”  _ Suki says, wonder overflowing from her tone, and Yue smiles, leaning into her palm, and–

And the scene fades away.

*

**THEN**

The house is quiet at night, exhaling softly with the ocean breeze, and Sokka makes his way to the kitchen as silently as he can, tiptoeing around the floorboards he knows will creak with the slightest pressure. Someone has left a window open in the living room and now the curtain is flapping about, rustling rhythmic like a heartbeat, and–

“What are you doing?”

Sokka doesn’t scream.  _ He doesn’t.  _ And even if he did, it would be less of a scream and more of a brave war cry. “What are  _ you  _ doing?” He hisses, one hand still clutching his chest, “do you  _ want  _ to give me a heart attack?”

“I was just,” Zuko frowns, closing the door behind him and stepping fully into the hallway, and Sokka feels his heart thundering up a storm behind his ribs. “Er, I was going to the kitchen. Why are you up?”

“I was going for a walk,” he says honestly, finding no reason to lie, and because it’s so dark outside, moonlight washing everything in dreamlike silver, and Zuko looks softer, as if the late hours have dulled his edges, and here, in this beach house, in these Islands, it always feels a little like anything is possible, Sokka takes the leap of faith down the cliff he’s been teetering at the edge for so long, “wanna come with?”

Zuko looks at him, eyes searching for something, and Sokka wants to reach for him, ask if this means as much as he thinks it means, but courage tonight feels like a finite resource, so he doesn’t. He waits until Zuko nods, then smiles, relieved.

Sneaking out the front door is nothing compared to sneaking out of an Air Temple on Appa’s back, and soon the summer sky is greeting them with its thousands of stars, constellations so foreign to Sokka, it aches somewhere distant in his heart. Maybe, in time, he’ll learn them.

Or, maybe he’ll be teaching them to Zuko, somewhere in the ice slopes of the South Pole.

It’s peaceful out here, with the wind and the waves, and Zuko so warm beside him, close enough their hands brush against each other with every breath; Sokka wishes they could stay here forever.

Another brush of hands. 

He looks up, finds Zuko already looking back.

“Hey,” Sokka smiles, wonders if he’s dreaming this up– the sand beneath his feet, the waves at his ankles, the look in Zuko’s eyes, a perfect mirror of his own. 

Zuko smiles back and it’s the most beautiful thing Sokka’s ever seen. “Hey.”

The ocean is reflecting the moon in gentle waves, and anything is possible, so Sokka cradles his hopes like a candle against the wind and lets it grow into a forest fire. He’s so in love with this man, it all feels larger than life, larger than the ocean and the countless stars above.

Anything is possible.

“Can I kiss you?” Sokka asks, handing out his heart like a shell on the beach and trusting Zuko not to throw it back to the sea.

_ “Please,”  _ Zuko says and reaches for him, the word slipping between them and washing away in the tide, and Sokka kisses him.

Anything is possible, so they kiss again, and again, and again.

*

**NOW**

Investigating a bathroom isn’t exactly what she had in mind, but Korra has to admit this place is probably bigger than her entire room at Air Temple Island, with a sprawling bathtub and porcelain sink, even if the mirror is broken beyond repair, caked with mold and rust.

“Did you hear that?” Asami is suddenly at her side, no longer poking at the cabinets, her eyebrows furrowed in that way that makes Korra want to kiss the wrinkle away, “it sounded like a scream.”

“Maybe Wu got spooked?” She shrugs, bumping their shoulders in comfort, “Mako’s with him, though. Maybe one of them will finally make a move.”

Asami smiles, but it’s weak, clouded with worry, “you really didn’t hear anything?”

“No,” Korra frowns. If Asami is really shaken, then maybe they should get a move on, find the others, “do you want to leave?”

“I– no, no, it’s fine, it’s probably just the pipes. It’s fine, let’s keep exploring,” Asami grins properly this time, kissing her quickly at the lips, “look, I found this hairpin.”

It’s a pretty thing, even if it’s rusted like everything else in this house, but it was clearly beautiful once upon a time, might even have been one of the royal pieces, shaped like flames reaching up to the sky. “Hey, maybe we can restore it–  _ shit, what’s that?” _

Korra vaguely realizes she’s holding on too tight to Asami’s hand and loosens up her hold a little, but her eyes never leave the flickering image solidifying by the sink, human shapes slowly taking form. “Are those spirits?” Asami whispers, voice surprisingly steady, calm.

Should they be more scared? Korra isn’t sure, but she finds there’s nothing threatening about the ghosts unfurling in front of them– they almost feel calm, if sad. Melancholic. Like looking at an old photo. 

“I… don’t think so?” She whispers back, watching the vague shapes turning into faces she’s seen hundreds of times growing up. “It feels– like the swamp, almost.”

The images are still translucent, not fully fleshed out, but they’re moving now, their voices steadily growing louder, the hair a young Sokka is clumsily cutting falling to the tiled floor.

“Hey, _careful,”_ an equally young Azula snaps, and her hands clench the porcelain sink, sending the hairpin tumbling down without her noticing. It falls without a sound, rolling silently behind the toilet.

“I told you to stay still,” Sokka fixes her with a glare through the mirror and Azula grumbles, her nose scrunching up in such a grumpy expression, Korra elbows Asami lightly, whispering a  _ that’s you  _ and earning herself an elbow back. “Look, do you want me to fix this or not?”

Azula glares. “I’m not entirely sure–”

“Well,” the voice comes from the doorway, drawling and bored, and Korra whips around to see an image appear between a blink and the next: it’s the former Chief of Security for the Royal Palace, looking so young, like in the photo she keeps by her desk in the flower shop, the one with her wife in full Kyoshi Warrior makeup. Now, she’s leaning against the wood, idly watching the proceedings. “It’s not like he can make it worse.”

“Mai?” A strained little sound escapes Azula’s lips and her shoulders snap back, straightening up as if unconsciously.

“You’d make a terrible hairdresser,” she tells her in a terribly blank voice, but at the end, her lips twitch in a half-smile and she meets Azula’s eyes in the mirror. 

The ghosts fade away in the breeze, leaving them alone in the bathroom again, the rusted royal hairpin still in her hand, and the taste of forgiveness at the back of her throat.

*

**NOW**

The silver light fades, the moon no longer impossibly close, and while the look on Suki’s face stays with Mako, the wonder in her eyes a mirror-perfect to the tangle of feelings he keeps buried six feet under somewhere in the graveyard of his heart, the images across the balcony change.

Yue leaves and Suki disappears, but in their place, another face shapes up from thin air– another glimpse of days he’s only heard in passing, in myths and tall tales: Zuko, looking not much older than Jinora, but just as perpetually exhausted as Mako feels.

Zuko is leaning against the railing, face tilted up to stare at the full moon above, but the line of his shoulder is tense and even from the distance, Mako can see the desperate way he clutches at the wood. “Hey, Yue, Zuko here.”

_ “Oh,”  _ Wu breathes out, hand tightening around Mako’s wrist.

“I, uh, I know we didn’t part ways in good terms, exactly, and it’s kind of my fault you had to sacrifice yourself at the North Pole, but I’m trying to make up for that. I mean, I know I can’t make up for that, but I’m doing the best I can to help. And to make sure it never happens again. I  _ am  _ sorry about that day. Well, I’m sorry about a lot of stuff, but if you’ve been watching over us like Sokka thinks you probably know that. Still, I’m sorry. It’s not enough, but I’m sorry.”

The terrible, terrible realization they’re watching something private rises up again, stronger than ever, and Mako knows he should drag Wu with him out of the room, but these memories keep playing like one of Bolin’s movers and he’s still not totally sold on their harmlessness. What if they turn vengeful or angry at them for watching?

Indifferent to his discomfort, the young Zuko leaning on the balcony starts speaking again, “but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. Guess I’m still selfish, huh? It’s just– Sokka says you were kind, and gentle, and so brave, and I– Yue, I need your help. Sokka’s my best friend, and he’s everything– I’ve never known– I mean, I  _ did,  _ of course, I did, but with the war going on, and then he was back in the South Pole and I was in the capital, it was easy to not think about it, but now. It’s stupid, isn’t it? It’s all I think about. Him, I mean. He’s just–  _ spirits,  _ how can anyone compare? He tells off my council and then he turns around and invents something new like it’s no big deal, and. And I just. I’m losing it, yeah. I just don’t want to screw this up. I mean, we’re fine now, I don’t need him to be in love with me, but–”

He trails off, and Mako can’t look away. His mouth is dry, throat itching with the mirror words he keeps stored there, down in his lungs. It’s embarrassing to be here, witnessing the former Fire Lord talk about his husband, but mostly, Mako can’t shake the twinges of sympathy, wants to reach out and shake him, say  _ I know, I know how that feels, how did you do it, how did you go from here to where you are now?  _

_ “Agni,  _ what am I doing? This is stupid, Toph is right, I  _ am  _ being stupid.  _ Argh!” _

The image shimmers, fading back into shadows just as Zuko is turning back, away from the railings, and Mako is left feeling raw, split open, heart crawling out of his ribs. 

*

**NOW**

“Did you hear that?”

Bolin doesn’t mean to startle Opal, but the kitchen is sort of eerie with all those rusted equipment and food gone bad so long ago, he’s surprised they can even tell it was ever edible, and the shadows look awfully long tonight, flickering in the moonlight, and he could have  _ sworn  _ he heard a scream.

“Just the others upstairs,” she says, not complaining about his tight grip on her hand because she’s awesome like that, “I don’t know why they’re running around so much, but frankly, I don’t really want to know.”

“Probably for the best,” he agrees, poking at the dead flower pot by the sink and for a second he can almost see it at the back of his eyelids– Avatar Aang extending a hand, beaming when Katara laughs but accepts it, setting the flower down to allow herself to be twirled around the kitchen even though they have no music, and they look so young, teenagers, really, and so happy, and– he blinks. “Huh. Weird.”

“What?” Opal has a button in her hand, holding it up to the faint light and not paying attention to him, but Bolin could swear he’s seen that button before, that particular shade of blue, but– “what was that?”

“Did you see something too? Because I could’ve sworn I saw Avatar Aang and Katara, just now!”

Opal is holding on to him just as tightly now, but she still whips her head to stare at him, frowning, “wait, what? No, nevermind, I meant–  _ that.  _ Are you seeing that too?”

Following her finger, Bolin finds that he is, in fact, seeing  _ that.  _ By which he means, of course,  _ the freaking mass of shadows materializing in the middle of the kitchen like it wants to have a tea party.  _ “Yup, weird shadow monster at the table, yeah, check.”

“Does it look… sad to you?” She’s still frowning, yes, but it no longer looks like her scared frown, having softened sometime ago into her worried frown, “I kind of want to give it a hug?”

The shadow is spreading into something human-shaped, girl-shaped, actually, with black giving into Fire-Nation-red and the top-knot becoming clear in her head, and Bolin thinks there is something sad about her, yeah, too melancholic to be terrifying.

He doesn’t want to run for the hills.

“Can’t sleep?” Another shadow steps into the kitchen, startlingly clear this time and impossible not to recognize: it’s Zuko, the former Fire Lord, but young like in the books, like in the paintings about the end of the war.

“How are you everywhere these days?” The half-transparent girl grows more solid, the Royal-gold of her clothes reflecting in the moonlight.

“Me neither,” Zuko continues pleasantly as if not hearing her, “but you know, I don’t remember this place being this peaceful when we were kids.”

“I know you’ve never been good at picking up behavioral clues,” she cuts in, “so let me make it easy for you:  _ I want to be alone.” _

“Maybe it’s the moon,” he’s stifling a smile, it’s easy to tell, “I have in pretty good authority she’s–”

The girl groans, burying her face in her hands like she wants to melt into the table. “Spare me,” she glares at him and the image is a familiar one anywhere in the Fire Nation. It’s impossible not to recognize Lady Azula. “If you’re going to insist on staying, at least be quiet.”

Lord Zuko smiles openly now, resting a hand on her shoulder, seeming surprised when she doesn’t shake him off, and his whole face softens, and it reminds Bolin so much of Mako, it kinda hurts a little. “It’ll get better.”

“Shut up,” Azula hisses, but she doesn’t turn away from him, doesn’t push, or claw, or bite, not as the books made her out to be when she was this young.

“It  _ will,”  _ Zuko insists, hesitating for a second before drawing her into a hug, “come on, ‘Zula, trust me?”

It’s so weird to see  _ the  _ Azula looking so young and sad and being  _ hugged  _ by her brother, the former Fire Lord! Bolin blinks, trying to make sense of the scene along with all he’s heard about them– maybe it’s because  _ he  _ is technically a sort of war hero now, or because he knows Korra, has known her since the beginning, but it’s easier now than it would have been before everything. No one likes to talk about it, but the last Team Avatar was just kids, younger than they had been, really. 

And so had been Azula.

Bolin looks away, down to his feet, and pretends not to hear her voice breaking when she hisses another  _ shut up. _

By the time he looks back up, the ghosts are gone and it’s just him and Opal standing alone in the kitchen and pretending watching that hasn’t changed anything. “We should go find the others,” she says, voice pained, and Bolin only nods, holding her hand as fiercely as before and making for the door.

*

**THEN**

“Did you see that?”

“Your sister dancing with Aang in the kitchen instead of doing the dishes as they promised?”

“Yes! They  _ promised!” _

“So did Toph yesterday but I still had to buy more bowls in the village.”

“Zuko, I love you, I do, but  _ what do you mean you to buy more bowls–” _

*

**NOW**

It was surprisingly easy to find each other, all of them converging in the living room as if summoned by magic and adamant to get out of this place as soon as possible, no more exploring for them.

Mako doesn’t ask, no one asks, really, but it’s clear they all saw something at the house, one of those echoes,  _ footprints,  _ left by the last occupants. The house may not be haunted in the way the villagers think, but there are still memories written in the walls, moments too large to fade away. Maybe it’s like Toph’s swamp, kind of.

Looking back now, from the outside in, he can almost see it as it used to be: lights on, laughter drifting loud from the rooms, and footsteps running through the halls. 

They had been so young in those memories, younger than Mako is now, then Wu, then Korra or Bolin or any of the others, and he wonders if they had felt like they’d stay like that forever. It’s very easy to think so, standing here on the beach, with so many stars overhead, and everyone you love best at arm’s reach.

“Alright, buddy?” Wu bumps their shoulders, smiling softly, and Mako loves him so much, he’s drowning in it. He never wants it to stop. 

He thinks back to Zuko standing on the balcony and asking the Moon Spirit for help, glances up at the full moon above, smiles. Maybe this is how. “Yeah,” Mako breathes in, takes his hand, intertwining their fingers, breathes out, “you?”

Wu looks at their joined hands, back up at him, and the whole universe is reflected in the green, “yeah.”

They walk back in silence, staying a few feet behind the others, and listen to the ocean, to each other’s hearts. Behind them, the house grows smaller and smaller, until it disappears behind the horizon, left once more to dream with its ghosts.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> oh, hi, thanks for reading! And if you liked this, you can always come talk to me on [my tumblr.](http://spookykyoshi.tumblr.com/)


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